SAN JOSE, Calif.–Aptina today announced that it has signed a patent cross-license agreement with Sony, which provides each company with access to the other’s patent portfolio.
Aptina and Sony have built industry leading patent portfolios that include seminal image sensor patents covering image capture and processing methods. These technologies are fundamental to the world’s growing image sensor industry, with sales of over two billion units annually, and found in almost every consumer electronics device including smart phones, automobiles, tablets, televisions, gaming platforms, medical equipment and digital cameras.
This cross-license agreement enables these two innovation leaders to operate freely and use each other’s patented inventions to advance the pace of development for cameras and other imaging applications. The cooperation fostered by the cross-license reinforces the ability of both companies to provide compelling imaging solutions to their customers.
“Patents and innovation are a critical component of Aptina’s strategy, and Aptina’s patent portfolio is the largest and strongest in the image sensor industry,” said Bob Gove, President and CTO of Aptina. “We believe that this powerful blend will advance technology to realize our goal of enabling consumers to capture beautiful images and visual information.”
Aptina, the foundational CMOS imaging company, began within Micron Technology in 2001 with acquisitions of early CMOS imaging companies Photobit and then Avago Technologies’ image sensor business. Aptina became an independent company in 2009. Aptina delivers advanced CMOS imaging solutions to all major imaging markets and is the leading supplier in many markets including the rapidly growing automotive market....Show more →
A very interesting move for both sensor manufactures, I'd say this will give them both ownership of the market for some time.
Please let the first sensor to benefit be the FF sensor of the NEX-9.

No one is giving any IP to anyone. All this is saying is that they will not sue each other for patent violations when one of them uses a techniques similar to something described in other company's patent.

Although to be fair it isn't 100% clear this would change anything about Sony or Aptina sensors. Perhaps it just prevents a costly patent fight like the ones occurring in the mobile space and leaves the two of companies free to continue doing what they've been doing already.

As for Canon - it has been bad news for a long while for them as far as sensors go. No improvement in years. (Not that their sensors are bad, or that a sensor is the only important part of a camera).

Canon's sensors are good, just not equal to today's best, because they have been reusing the same tech and just adding PDAF pixels, something Sony has been doing with the 16MP APS-C sensor in the 5N/5R.

Canon is rumored to be ready to release a new sensor design(that hopefully will be as good or better than Sony's current stuff).

kwalsh wrote:
As for Canon - it has been bad news for a long while for them as far as sensors go. No improvement in years....

As much as I like what Sony is doing with its sensor tech, it would be an exaggeration to say that canon sensors have seen no improvements in years. Canon FF sensors have actually improved quite a lot in past few years. They just haven't been able to catch up with Sony in terms of low-ISO DR. But yes on the APS-C side they are standing still.

As far as I understand this is basically down to the fact that Canon is still stuck with the old 0.5 micron fabrication process while others like Sony have moved on to much finer fabrication technologies like 0.18 micron. It looks like there is not much canon can do to improve the high density APS-C sensors any further until they also move to the finer fab technology. That also is why they have not been increasing FF sensor resolution either. However it is rumored that in near future we will start seeing canon sensors with new process, which should bridge the gap.

curious80 wrote:
As far as I understand this is basically down to the fact that Canon is still stuck with the old 0.5 micron fabrication process while others like Sony have moved on to much finer fabrication technologies like 0.18 micron. It looks like there is not much canon can do to improve the high density APS-C sensors any further until they also move to the finer fab technology. That also is why they have not been increasing FF sensor resolution either. However it is rumored that in near future we will start seeing canon sensors with new process, which should bridge the gap....Show more →

That would explain why Canon has been falling behind. Upgrading fabs to a smaller process is very costly and complicated business.

curious80 wrote:
No one is giving any IP to anyone. All this is saying is that they will not sue each other for patent violations when one of them uses a techniques similar to something described in other company's patent.

Yes, I think we can go back to sleep. Beyond jumping into wild speculation, nothing interesting here.